


Little Miss Obsessive

by missmishka



Series: Cut Her Some Slack [2]
Category: Land of the Dead (2005)
Genre: Author has more mental issues than Charlie, M/M, Multi, POV Outsider, if that's actually a thing, power imbalance issues, rated for references to prostitutional experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-08
Updated: 2014-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 23:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1125669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmishka/pseuds/missmishka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Slack can't stop thinking about <em>them</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Miss Obsessive

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories, thoughts or circumstances embellished on a little more than the original format had done. Not for any profit.

Now that Slack has seen the truth of the relationship between Charlie and Riley, she can’t stop thinking about it. 

She studies them.  The way they are; alone, together and with the others seems fascinating to her now.

Same sex action is nothing new to her.  When the money had been good enough or the customer had enough power, anything went in her previous line of work.  She’d never minded a little girl on girl.  She’d been in a threesome once with two men, but had ended up more voyeur than filling in their sandwich as she had thought she would have been. 

It had been surprisingly hot to watch those two men together.  They had been well matched, with similar builds and personalities.  Those two men, whose names she had never known and faces she barely remembers, had been equals. 

That’s what kept tripping her up with Charlie and Riley.

 _They_ were unequal.

Riley has looks and intelligence; Charlie is older, scarred and …

She doesn’t know what Charlie is.  He’s been called retarded and stupid in her presence, but she disagrees with those terms as vehemently as Riley does.  There’s no doubt that Charlie’s a little slow, but she wonders at the source of it.  Had he always been like that?  Was it brain damage?  Birth defect?

Regardless, he’s not on the same level as Riley.

Unequal relationships are tricky.  They tend to make messes for the couple and everyone around them. 

But the thing that Charlie and Riley have seems somehow balanced.  Everything that she sees between them in her constant watching seems … _healthy_.

She can understand what Charlie gets out of it.  He has a purpose; he’s taking care of Riley.  He _has_ Riley Denbo’s affection and attentions and who wouldn’t want that? 

Not that she’s jealous or anything.  This isn’t a woman scorned or bitter almost lover role she’s found herself in.  She counts both men as her friends and she finds that she’s … _concerned_ about their relationship.

No one else seems to be, though. 

Pretty Boy just shrugs it off when Slack tries to broach the topic with her.  “They’re _them_ ,” is all the blonde has to say on the topic.

Anchor isn’t one to talk much about anything and he only gives her a speaking glance when she brings the subject up with him.

She figures Pillsbury will be an ally, given that they’re both new to the group.  She seeks the Samoan out on his nightly perimeter walk.

“So,” she begins slowly, tucking her hands in the back pockets of her jeans as she falls into step beside him. “Charlie and Riley…”

“Cute couple,” Pillsbury says.

“I know, right?” she playfully nudges her elbow against the man’s side.

“But,” she continues after a few quiet minutes, “don’t you think it’s kind of…”

“Gay?”

“Wrong.”

Pillsbury comes to a stop so sudden that she almost trips over him as she keeps moving forward.

“I don’t get it myself; guys doings other guys, but it's different now than it was before.  Heaven, Hell; none of that really matters if we’re just going to end up walking around in our own corpses when we die.”

“I don’t mean Biblically wrong,” she waves off his response.  “I mean, like, ethically.  Charlie’s…”

“Special,” Pillsbury nods, getting her point.  “He’s a grown up.  They’re happy. That’s good enough for me.”

“But-”

“I don’t think I’m the one you want to be having this talk with.  I’m not the one that you _should_ be having this talk with.  Go ask Charlie.  Ask Riley.  Or just … let it go.”

Letting it go doesn’t seem to be an option for her, though.

Talking to Charlie?  She enjoys that.  They talk guns and hunting; old movies and music. He's been teaching her how to track things, how to clean an animal carcass; which plants can be eaten and which should be avoided.  He's been teaching her survival and she hasn't had much to teach him in return. She enjoys his company, though, and likes to think he does hers as well. They talk a lot of nothing and she has no idea how to bring up a serious topic with the man.

Riley seems to be waiting for her when she finally breaks.  She approaches him one fading afternoon to join him in the rocking chairs on the back porch.  He’s tipped back in his chair; one foot propped against the railing, hands folded over his stomach as he watches Charlie building a smokehouse to be used for curing meats for the coming winter.

“He seems to know what he’s doing,” she observes as she sits and begins to rock beside him.

“He usually does,” Riley says after a moment, slanting a speaking glance her way as he drops his casual pose.  “Are we finally discussing this?”

She starts guiltily, jamming her feet to the porch to stop the chair. 

“You thought I hadn’t noticed?” he smirks at her surprise.  “You’ve been virtually stalking us and questioning everyone _but_ me.”

“I wasn’t … stalking,” she sputters.  “I’m just ….,” she trails off at the skeptical arching of his eyebrow.

“You’re worried about him,” Riley finishes for her after a few minutes of awkward silence during which his attention goes back to Charlie.

She turns her attention in the same direction and Charlie, as if sensing their scrutiny, looks up from his task to give a little wave.  She returns the gesture while Riley just smiles tenderly at the man.

“I’m glad,” Riley says softly as Charlie goes back to work.  “He watches all of our backs, it's good to know that I’m not the only one watching his.”

“You’re not _just_ _**watching**_ his back, though.”

He blinks at her in obvious surprise.

“ _That’s_ what this is about?  The gay-”

“Not the ‘gay thing,’” she interrupts before he can begin an indignant spiel.  “It’s … he’s just,” she struggles for the word and finds it when she looks at the man under discussion and watches him suck on his thumb after hitting it with a hammer; “vulnerable.”

“Who isn’t?” Riley snorts, even as his expression turns somber and introspective.

They’re quiet for a time, each sorting through their own thoughts.

“What’s his story, anyway?” she asks, leaning forward with her elbows propped on her knees. 

“You mean, did he ride the short bus to school?” Riley grimaces and sits back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck.  “I don’t know his I.Q.  After a while, that kind of thing stops mattering.  He’s not a child, but he thinks like one sometimes.  That held me back for the longest time, but he knows what he wants and when that became me, he knew how to get it.”

“You’re saying that he,” she looks skeptically from the man beside her to the one in the yard; “that _Charlie_ started it between you.”

“I’d never let anyone abuse or use him, especially me.  I take care of him as he takes care of me.”

She’s quiet again, mulling it over in her head and trying to picture Charlie as the initiator.  She stares at the man, then openly stares at Riley with the same consideration.  She can’t picture him making the first move, either.  She can’t picture them _together_ even though she knows that they are. Riley has just confirmed that they _are_ , but this has maybe been her problem for the past few weeks. 

She can’t _imagine_ it and she has a very good, very active, XXX capable imagination. 

She remembers that one time; those two long gone men from her life.  She remembers how they’d kissed one another; fiercer and more hungrily than a man typically kissed a woman.  She remembers how they’d touched and held one another; harder and tighter than they would a woman.  She remembers the sound of it; grunts of pleasure with hisses of something like pain that hadn’t stopped them from enjoying it at all.  Lube had made it slicker, messier than the sex she was used to.  The smells of sweat and sex had been heavier; thick enough it practically had a taste that filled the room.

She can’t see Charlie and Riley _like **that**_.

_But she wants to._

“Oh, my God,” she bolts to her feet at the realization.  “I am a horrible person.”

Riley rises more slowly to stand beside her, watching closely; suddenly cautious and careful at her words.  His expression asks for further explanation, but she can’t think of a single word to add.  She bites her lip, tucks her hands in her pockets and walks away.

**Author's Note:**

> *Title taken from the Ashley Simpson song that I somehow have stuck in my head right now.
> 
> **Also, my Slack may be getting a little OOC as I'm probably channeling more than a little of myself into her here.


End file.
